


You’re a loose gun, baby (but you get the job done)

by Lorelaia



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: But it does eventually, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Wherein Nothing Really Makes Sense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-26 08:30:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorelaia/pseuds/Lorelaia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A gun, by itself, doesn’t kill – it is instead a manifestation in a killer’s hand, a symbol of a decision already made.</p>
<p>Who, then, controls the trigger?</p>
<p>On Q, M, and certain double-oh agents who may or may not have a problem with authority.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kelli113](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelli113/gifts).



> My first multi-chapter fic, and first adventure into the land of Bond! This could get messy.

***

 

Prologue

 

***

 

For a man who makes his living from death, Bond’s hands are surprisingly gentle.

 

Q doesn’t quite lean into his touch, and his heart doesn’t quite stutter in his chest, but his breath shudders delicately into a whimper and his eyes flutter slowly closed. Against the inky backdrop of his closed eyelids the touch of Bond’s fingers is electric, goose flesh marking the slow progress of long fingers against his chest. His breath leaves him in a slow broken exhale, and Bond swallows the noise of his whimper with lips as soft as rosepetals.

 

“You made me into this.”

 

The words echo in the quiet places between them, whispered against flesh sweat-sweet and slick, against lips wrapped trembling around the shadows of a whimper. Bond’s eyelashes flutter against his cheeks, light as a butterfly’s wings, lips pressing with excruciating gentleness to the fine curve of Q’s cheek. Q’s fingers tremble in the warmth of the sheets, nails scrapping delicately over fine silk and tanned flesh, and Bond presses a sigh against the curl of Q’s throat.

 

“Yes.”

 

The moonlight falls soft and silver over gleaming muscles and fine flesh, and Bond trickles kisses down the long length of Q’s throat. In the fine cloth of the sheets Q’s fingers stir and press gently against the curl of Bond’s broad shoulders, over the dip of a scar long left by a bullet, over the curves and dips of a delicate spine. Bond’s breath trembles against the dip of Q’s neck, sweet with gin and olives, and with the shudder of those soft lips Q lets his eyes quiver slowly open to study blonde hair and blue eyes in the twist of silver moonlight.

 

“There was a time when you wouldn't have wanted this,” he whispers it slowly, as if the words themselves don’t lay heavy on his chest, as if his hands don’t clench against broad shoulders and silken flesh. Bond sighs against his neck, warm and heavy, and Q turns his head to press kisses to the fine curve of a delicate ear. He whispers still to th soft blur of fine hair in the moonlight, to the faint gleam of soft starlight through long gauzy curtains, to the sweet scent of a pillow that smells tenderly of down and heather. "A time when you couldn't have forgiven me."

 

Bond sighs again and curls his chin to capture Q's lips in a kiss, slow and languid, deep and practiced. Q breathes in the scent of it, the heat of it, the weight of the other man's hands curling slowly over the bare curve of his hips. Q feels drunk on it, on the heat and the moonlight, on the glide of strong hands and the feel of his own flesh, electric and burning and gleaming with the slow gentle strokes of silver moonlight that flits between shadows across flesh and silk sheets.

 

A year. Barely a year since that day, since breadcrumbs left to tempt the steps of a monster instead spread blood and fire across the expanse of the Scottish moors, and they stood bent beneath the weight of the sky’s fall.

 

Q closes his eyes, slow and languorous, and breathes a sigh against the cupids bow curve of Bond’s lips.

 

“ _Kneel_ ,” the word breaks in the shadow of starlight, low and quiet, and the moonlight vanishes behind the weight of silk curtains and lace.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One

**MI6 HQ**

**One Year Ago**

***

 

Even after the whole thing with Silva and the breadcrumbs, there was still something about Mallory that set Q on edge.

 

There was a sharpness to him that reminded the Quartermaster uncomfortably of the double-oh agents, the edge of a blade hidden beneath the curl of those careful, perceptive eyes. M – the old M, the one they mourned in London rain – had had those same eyes, tempered more with age and too long behind a desk, but sharp and ready to strike. Mallory studied him in slow uneven glances like a painter before a subject, hands braced before his chin, eyes balanced and cool above the clasp of his fingers.

 

Q didn’t fidget. He was grateful for that dignity, at least.

 

“Q,” M pronounced finally, slow and even, and Q felt his back straighten like an errant schoolboy before the principal. He was a grown man, for heaven’s sake, not some child caught out of turn; but his back tensed regardless and he set his chin. M noticed, of course, and for a moment a flicker of something shifted through those hard-edged eyes, gone before Q could even put a name to its shape. The man’s lips twisted into a parody of a smile, there and gone in a heartbeat, and Q bit his own tongue so hard he tasted blood. “Your skills are needed. Your next mission.”

 

He nodded towards the dossier sitting open before him on the desk, the dossier Q noticed when he first entered the room, but the Quartermaster made no move to take it. Those liquid eyes shifted to look back up at him, careful and slow, and Q refused to lower his gaze when M focused on him.

 

“I’m Quartermaster,” Q told him flatly, slow and even, allowing no room for disagreement, and M made a quiet noise of confirmation in his throat. “Send one of the double-ohs.”

 

“We have need of your…” M paused, searching for the right word, and Q’s hands curled into fists quite without his conscious consent. M noticed, of course, but he said nothing about the Quartermaster’s badly contained irritability; instead he braced his chin above his hands, his eyes like blades and ice, lips curving to deliver each word with an even weight. “ _Unique_ … skill set.”

 

“I’m tech support,” Q managed with an equal weight, forcing his fists to unclench. M looked up at him, slow and even, and Q desperately wanted to dislike him but couldn’t _quite_ manage. This M had stared at him in the depths of the Q Branch, watched him lay a trail of breadcrumbs for a demon, and had never spoken against him or against his post. Q was well aware that he wasn’t the first man to wear the label of Quartermaster, but he _was_ the youngest. He’d fought tooth and nail to get where he was, but all it would take to topple him would be a few well-placed words and a torn contract. Yet here he was. “ _Quartermaster_. I don’t enter the field-“

 

“You hadn’t met 007 before,” M murmured with a beautifully pronounced gravity, and Q trickled into an awkward silence. Mallory watched him closely, eyes like shadow and black mist, before he blinked and it was gone. “They have information we need – a hard drive, cliché as it is. We _need_ Bond in there, but…" he didn't stir, hands remaining resolutely locked together; but in another man his silence may have been discomfort, for a moment; or perhaps doubt. "We need someone who can contain him, who can aim the gun and hold the trigger.”

 

Mallory lifted his chin, gesturing to the open dossier, and Q felt his gaze being drawn hopelessly down. It was a little too far to see the text even with his glasses, but the picture was clear and bold. A man, a little heavy around the chin, his nose a little too big for classical good looks. Despite that he was handsome, eyes wide and encouraging confidence, smile inviting and even, hair carefully styled and maintained. A man who took exceptional care of himself, who invited admiring glances. This man was one who had never had to fight to get what he wanted. Q hated him, instantly and with a passion that surprised him.

 

Something in his thoughts must have shown on his face, for Mallory leant back into his seat with a brief sigh. For a second M allowed his careful mask to fall and Q saw the frustration and exhaustion that tightened the other man’s lips and that furrowed his brow into lines. For a long moment the Head and Quartermaster of MI6 merely regarded each other, before Q curled his lips into a parody of a smile and stepped forward to press one heavy hand to the open dossier.

 

“You want him controlled.”

 

M didn’t deny the accusation, and despite himself Q couldn’t help but respect the man for his honesty. The Quartermaster lifted the dossier into his arms, bracing its weight as he started to read, and without looking up continued, “Why?”

 

For a time M was silent, long enough that Q finished the first few pages of the dossier, before M cleared his throat. Q looked up on reflex, a trained reaction established in earliest childhood, and the Head of MI6 met his gaze with eyes like ice and daggers.

 

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to.

 

 _Pathological rejection of authority based on unresolved childhood trauma_. A gun itself never killed; it was but a tool in a killer’s hand, a manifestation of a decision already made.

 

A decision that, _without_ _someone controlling the trigger_ , was at best baseless and at worse…

 

Q’s lips thinned into a straight line, white and tight, and he carefully closed the dossier. M settled back into his seat, eyes like deep water, and Q closed his fingers around the thick black leather of the dossier in his arms and released a breath like a sigh.


End file.
